11/23/2011 @ 6:00PM

$46 Million Yard Sale

Billionaire Lily Safra brought in $45.9 million at a Sotheby’s auction featuring 800 lots of her European furniture and paintings. Her castoffs, she hopes, will inspire new collectors. Safra, worth $1.2 billion, amassed a fortune from her first two tycoon husbands but became a billionaire in 1999 after her third husband, Brazilian billionaire banker Edmond Safra, died in a fire at the couple’s Monaco apartment. Since then the 73-year-old socialite has focused on creating a philanthropic legacy–sometimes obtaining donations from unusual sources. In 2010 she won a court fight against Rus sian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov over a $53 million down payment he made to purchase her Riviera estate, Villa Leopolda (he had second thoughts); Safra says she gave the proceeds to ten different charities. She had an unexpected donor to one of her causes this year: The U.K.’s Daily Mail published an apology–and made a donation to a charity of Safra’s choice–after running a libelous article suggesting she’d been involved in her husband’s death.

Sold for $614,500

A south German ivory cup and cover, 17th century. Microwave- and dishwasher-safe.